It's not the leap you might imagine.
Lhasa has a zoo. Of course, if it were up to environmental and animal protection societies, it wouldn't. I don't know any foreigner who has ever paid the ten kuai admittance fee into the zoo and, after having the experience for free, I know why.
There's just something morbidly amusing about watching grandfathers throw cookies into tiny concrete cages containing bears which barely cast a sideways glance at the cookie, instead displaying expressions of total depression. Or wandering amidst overflowing water pipes to a small pen holding rams which have somehow grown three to five horns to their obvious discomfort. Or leaning against a thin railing to get a better look at a hiccuping lion. In a zoo like this one, one has the distinct impression that the animals themselves are ashamed and would turn away from the crowds less from the normal course of animal activity than from total lack of dignity.
While there, I remarked to my student, who had a bewildering amount of pride in and fascination with the zoo, that it seemed like the animals had forgotten how to be animals, if they ever knew.
He wanted to throw a bottle of coke into the monkeys to watch them drink it.
Enter the classroom. We have spent the past month learning different activities that teachers can use to teach English to primary school students. Today the students were given an opportunity to teach one of the activities in pairs for the class. The topic that they had to teach on was animals, which only heightened the morbid amusement.
In some ways class today was like a flashback to the zoo. Hand drawn pictures of deformed animals littered the board and their desks. Crippling shyness overtook the tallest boy in the class and all he could manage was to stand in a corner with his face covered while his partner did the activity. Some students apologized for their mistakes in advance of the lesson. A few girls were slightly reminiscent of the hiccuping lion. One girl misspoke and disappeared behind the teacher's desk for a few minutes. Their classmates repeated mispronounced and random words, activities were more like nonsense than teaching, and confusion pretty much reigned for the two hours.
At one point I felt like handing out bottles of coke...
Despite the vague feelings that all the classes that had been taught on how to actually do these activities had been wasted, I am proud of them. This was literally their first time ever teaching anything to anyone. It's not that they forgot how to be teachers, they never knew, and this was their fledgling attempt. I don't plan to go back to the zoo, but this experience we will try again.
There's just something morbidly amusing about watching grandfathers throw cookies into tiny concrete cages containing bears which barely cast a sideways glance at the cookie, instead displaying expressions of total depression. Or wandering amidst overflowing water pipes to a small pen holding rams which have somehow grown three to five horns to their obvious discomfort. Or leaning against a thin railing to get a better look at a hiccuping lion. In a zoo like this one, one has the distinct impression that the animals themselves are ashamed and would turn away from the crowds less from the normal course of animal activity than from total lack of dignity.
While there, I remarked to my student, who had a bewildering amount of pride in and fascination with the zoo, that it seemed like the animals had forgotten how to be animals, if they ever knew.
He wanted to throw a bottle of coke into the monkeys to watch them drink it.
Enter the classroom. We have spent the past month learning different activities that teachers can use to teach English to primary school students. Today the students were given an opportunity to teach one of the activities in pairs for the class. The topic that they had to teach on was animals, which only heightened the morbid amusement.
In some ways class today was like a flashback to the zoo. Hand drawn pictures of deformed animals littered the board and their desks. Crippling shyness overtook the tallest boy in the class and all he could manage was to stand in a corner with his face covered while his partner did the activity. Some students apologized for their mistakes in advance of the lesson. A few girls were slightly reminiscent of the hiccuping lion. One girl misspoke and disappeared behind the teacher's desk for a few minutes. Their classmates repeated mispronounced and random words, activities were more like nonsense than teaching, and confusion pretty much reigned for the two hours.
At one point I felt like handing out bottles of coke...
Despite the vague feelings that all the classes that had been taught on how to actually do these activities had been wasted, I am proud of them. This was literally their first time ever teaching anything to anyone. It's not that they forgot how to be teachers, they never knew, and this was their fledgling attempt. I don't plan to go back to the zoo, but this experience we will try again.
